In
Marxian economics and preceding theories,
[Perelman, p. 25 (ch. 2)] the problem of primitive accumulation (also called previous accumulation, original accumulation) of
capital concerns the origin of capital, and therefore of how
class distinctions between possessors and non-possessors came to be.
Adam Smith's account of primitive-original accumulation depicted a peaceful process, in which some workers laboured more diligently than others and gradually built up wealth, eventually leaving the less diligent workers to accept living wages for their labour.
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
rejected this account as "childish" for its omission of the role of violence, war, enslavement and
colonialism
Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colony, colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers may impose the ...
in the historical accumulation of land and wealth. Marxist scholar David Harvey explains Marx's primitive accumulation as a process which principally "entailed taking land, say,
enclosing
Enclosure or Inclosure is a term, used in English landownership, that refers to the appropriation of "waste" or "common land" enclosing it and by doing so depriving commoners of their rights of access and privilege. Agreements to enclose land ...
it, and expelling a resident population to create a landless proletariat, and then releasing the land into the privatised mainstream of capital accumulation".
Naming and translations
The concept was initially referred to in various different ways, and the expression of an "accumulation" at the origin of capitalism began to appear with
Adam Smith. Smith, writing ''
The Wealth of Nations
''An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations'', generally referred to by its shortened title ''The Wealth of Nations'', is the '' magnum opus'' of the Scottish economist and moral philosopher Adam Smith. First published in ...
'' in his native English, spoke of a "previous" accumulation;
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
, writing ''
Das Kapital
''Das Kapital'', also known as ''Capital: A Critique of Political Economy'' or sometimes simply ''Capital'' (german: Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Ökonomie, link=no, ; 1867–1883), is a foundational theoretical text in materialist phi ...
'' in German, reprised Smith's expression, by translating it to German as ("original, initial"); Marx's translators, in turn, rendered it into English as ''primitive''.
James Steuart, with his 1767 work, is considered by some scholars as the greatest classical theorist of primitive accumulation.
[Perelman, p. 170 (ch. 7)]
The myths of political economy
In disinterring the origins of capital, Marx felt the need to dispel what he felt were religious myths and fairy-tales about the origins of capitalism. Marx wrote:
What must be explained is how the capitalist
relations of production are historically established; in other words, how it comes about that
means of production
The means of production is a term which describes land, labor and capital that can be used to produce products (such as goods or services); however, the term can also refer to anything that is used to produce products. It can also be used as an ...
become privately owned and traded, and how capitalists can find workers on the
labour market ready and willing to work for them, because they have no other means of livelihood (also referred to as the "
reserve army of labour
Reserve army of labour is a concept in Karl Marx's critique of political economy
Political economy is the study of how economic systems (e.g. markets and national economies) and political systems (e.g. law, institutions, government) are l ...
".)
The link between primitive accumulation and colonialism
At the same time as local obstacles to investment in manufactures are being overcome, and a unified national market is developing with a nationalist ideology, Marx sees a strong impulse to business development coming from
world trade:
Primitive accumulation and privatization
According to Marx, the purpose of primitive accumulation is to ''
privatize
Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...
'' the means of production, so that the exploiting owner class can profit from the
surplus labour
Surplus labour (German: ''Mehrarbeit'') is a concept used by Karl Marx in his critique of political economy. It means labour performed in excess of the labour necessary to produce the means of livelihood of the worker ("necessary labour"). The "su ...
of those who, lacking other means, must work for them.
Marx says that primitive accumulation means the
expropriation
Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...
of the direct producers, and more specifically "the dissolution of
private property ''based on the labour of its owner''... Self-earned private property, that is based, so to say, on the fusing together of the isolated, independent labouring-individual with the conditions of his labour, is supplanted by capitalistic private property, which rests on ''exploitation of the nominally free labour of others'', i.e., on wage-labour (emphasis added).
The social relations of capitalism
In the last chapter of ''
Capital, Volume I
''Capital. A Critique of Political Economy. Volume I: The Process of Production of Capital'' (german: Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Ökonomie Erster Band. Buch I: Der Produktionsprocess des Kapitals) is the first of three treatises that ma ...
'', Marx described the social conditions he thought necessary for capitalism with a comment about
Edward Gibbon Wakefield
Edward Gibbon Wakefield (20 March 179616 May 1862) is considered a key figure in the establishment of the colonies of South Australia and New Zealand (where he later served as a member of parliament). He also had significant interests in Brit ...
's theory of colonization:
This is indicative of Marx's more general fascination with settler colonialism, and his interest in how "free" lands—or, more accurately, lands seized from indigenous people—could disrupt capitalist social relations.
Ongoing primitive accumulation
"Orthodox" Marxists see primitive accumulation as a process beginning in the late
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
and finishing with the rise of capitalist industry, situated entirely within the transition from the feudal
mode of production
In the Marxist theory of historical materialism, a mode of production (German: ''Produktionsweise'', "the way of producing") is a specific combination of the:
* Productive forces: these include human labour power and means of production (tools, ...
to the capitalist mode of production. However, this can be seen as a misrepresentation of both Marx's ideas and historical reality, since feudal-type economies persist in various parts of the world, even in the 21st century.
Marx's description of primitive accumulation may also be seen as a ''special'' case of the ''general'' principle of capitalist market expansion. In part, trade grows incrementally, but often the establishment of capitalist
relations of production involves force and violence; transforming property relations means that assets previously owned by some people are no longer owned by them, but by other people, and making people part with their assets in this way involves coercion. This is an ongoing process of
expropriation
Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...
,
proletarianization
In Marxism, proletarianization is the social process whereby people move from being either an employer, unemployed or self-employed, to being employed as wage labor by an employer. Proletarianization is often seen as the most important form of down ...
and
urbanization
Urbanization (or urbanisation) refers to the population shift from rural to urban areas, the corresponding decrease in the proportion of people living in rural areas, and the ways in which societies adapt to this change. It is predominantly t ...
.
In his preface to ''
Das Kapital Vol. 1'', Marx compares the situations of England and Germany and points out that less developed countries ''also'' face a process of primitive accumulation. Marx comments that "if, however, the German reader shrugs his shoulders at the condition of the English industrial and agricultural labourers, or in optimist fashion comforts himself with the thought that in Germany things are not nearly so bad, I must plainly tell him, " (the tale is told of you!)".
Marx was referring here to the expansion of the capitalist mode of production (not the expansion of ''world trade''), through ''expropriation'' processes. He continues, "Intrinsically, it is not a question of the higher or lower degree of development of the social antagonism that results from the natural laws of capitalist production. It is a question of these laws themselves, of these tendencies working with iron necessity towards inevitable results. The country that is more developed industrially only shows, to the less developed, the image of its own future."
David Harvey's theory of accumulation by dispossession
David Harvey
David W. Harvey (born 31 October 1935) is a British-born Marxist economic geographer, podcaster and Distinguished Professor of anthropology and geography at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). He received his P ...
expands the concept of "primitive accumulation" to create a new concept, "
accumulation by dispossession
Accumulation by dispossession is a concept presented by the Marxist geographer David Harvey. It defines neoliberal capitalist policies that result in a centralization of wealth and power in the hands of a few by dispossessing the public and priv ...
", in his 2003 book, ''The New Imperialism''. Like Mandel, Harvey claims that the word "primitive" leads to a misunderstanding of the history of capitalism: that the original, "primitive" phase of capitalism is somehow a transitory phase that need not be repeated once commenced. Instead, Harvey maintains that primitive accumulation ("accumulation by dispossession") is a continuing process within the process of capital accumulation on a world scale. Because the central Marxian notion of crisis via "
over-accumulation" is assumed to be a constant factor in the process of capital accumulation, the process of "accumulation by dispossession" acts as a possible safety valve that may temporarily ease the crisis. This is achieved by simply lowering the prices of consumer commodities (thus pushing up the propensity for general consumption), which in turn is made possible by the considerable reduction in the price of production inputs. Should the magnitude of the reduction in the price of inputs outweigh the reduction in the price of consumer goods, it can be said that the
rate of profit will, for the time being, increase. Thus:
Harvey's theoretical extension encompasses more recent economic dimensions such as intellectual property rights, privatization, and predation and exploitation of nature and folk lore.
Privatization of public services puts enormous profit into capitalists' hands. If it belonged to the public sector, this profit would not exist. In this sense, the profit is created by dispossession of peoples or nations. Destructive industrial use of the environment is similar because the environment "naturally" belongs to everyone, or to no one: factually, it "belongs" to whoever lives there.
Multinational pharmaceutical companies collect information about how herb or other natural medicine is used among natives in less-developed country, do some R&D to find the material that make those natural medicines effective, and patent the findings. By doing so, multinational pharmaceutical companies can now sell the medicine to the natives who are the original source of the knowledge that made production of medicine possible. That is, dispossession of folklore (knowledge, wisdom, practice) through intellectual property rights.
David Harvey also argues that accumulation by dispossession is a temporal or partial solution to over-accumulation. Because accumulation by dispossession makes raw materials cheaper, the profit rate can at least temporarily go up.
Harvey's interpretation has been criticized by Brass,
who disputes the view that what is described as present-day primitive accumulation, or accumulation by dispossession, entails proletarianization. Because the latter is equated by Harvey with the separation of the direct producer (mostly smallholders) from the means of production (land), Harvey assumes this results in the formation of a workforce that is free. By contrast, Brass points out that in many instances the process of depeasantization leads to workers who are unfree, because they are unable personally to commodify or recommodify their labour-power, by selling it to the highest bidder.
Schumpeter's critique of Marx's theory
The economist
Joseph Schumpeter
Joseph Alois Schumpeter (; February 8, 1883 – January 8, 1950) was an Austrian-born political economist. He served briefly as Finance Minister of German-Austria in 1919. In 1932, he emigrated to the United States to become a professor at H ...
disagreed with the Marxian explanation of the origin of capital, because Schumpeter did not believe in
exploitation
Exploitation may refer to:
*Exploitation of natural resources
*Exploitation of labour
** Forced labour
*Exploitation colonialism
*Slavery
** Sexual slavery and other forms
*Oppression
*Psychological manipulation
In arts and entertainment
*Exploi ...
. In
liberal economic theory, the market returns to all people the exact value they have provided it; capitalists are just people who are very adept at saving and whose contributions are especially magnificent, and they do not take anything away from other people or the environment. Liberals believe that capitalism has no internal flaws or contradictions; only external threats. To liberals, the idea of the necessity of violent primitive accumulation to capital is particularly incendiary. Schumpeter wrote rather testily:
Schumpeter argued that
imperialism was not a necessary jump-start for capitalism, nor is it needed to bolster capitalism, because imperialism pre-existed capitalism. Schumpeter believed that, whatever the empirical evidence, capitalist world trade could in principle expand peacefully. Where imperialism occurrs, Schumpeter asserted, it has nothing to do with the intrinsic nature of
capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, priva ...
itself, or of capitalist market expansion. The distinction between Schumpeter and Marx here is subtle. Marx claimed that capitalism requires violence and imperialism—first, to kick-start capitalism with a pile of booty and to dispossess a population to induce them to enter into capitalist relations as workers, and then to surmount the otherwise-fatal contradictions generated within capitalist relations over time. Schumpeter's view was that imperialism is an atavistic impulse pursued by a state, independent of the interests of the economic ruling class.
See also
*
Accumulation by dispossession
Accumulation by dispossession is a concept presented by the Marxist geographer David Harvey. It defines neoliberal capitalist policies that result in a centralization of wealth and power in the hands of a few by dispossessing the public and priv ...
*
Enclosure
Enclosure or Inclosure is a term, used in English landownership, that refers to the appropriation of "waste" or " common land" enclosing it and by doing so depriving commoners of their rights of access and privilege. Agreements to enclose land ...
*
Capital accumulation
*
Common land
Common land is land owned by a person or collectively by a number of persons, over which other persons have certain common rights, such as to allow their livestock to graze upon it, to collect wood, or to cut turf for fuel.
A person who has a ...
*
History of capitalism
The history of capitalism is diverse and the concept of capitalism has many debated roots. The history of the past 500 years is concerned with the development of capitalism in its various forms. Capital accumulated by a variety of methods, at a v ...
* ''
The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State''
*
Relations of production
*
Socialist accumulation
References
Further reading
*
David Harvey
David W. Harvey (born 31 October 1935) is a British-born Marxist economic geographer, podcaster and Distinguished Professor of anthropology and geography at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). He received his P ...
(2005)
The New Imperialism' Oxford University Press. ,
*
Perelman, Michael The Invention of Capitalism: Classical Political Economy and the Secret History of Primitive Accumulation' Published by
Duke University Press
Duke University Press is an academic publisher and university press affiliated with Duke University. It was founded in 1921 by William T. Laprade as The Trinity College Press. (Duke University was initially called Trinity College). In 1926 D ...
, 2000 ,
*
Tom Brass
Tom Brass is an academic who has written widely on peasant studies. For many years he was at the University of Cambridge as an affiliated lecturer in their Faculty of Social and Political Sciences and at Queens' College, Cambridge as their Dir ...
(2011) ''Labour Regime Change in the Twenty-First Century: Unfreedom, Capitalism and Primitive Accumulation.'' Published by Brill (Leiden), .
*
Adam Smith (1776) ''
The Wealth of Nations
''An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations'', generally referred to by its shortened title ''The Wealth of Nations'', is the '' magnum opus'' of the Scottish economist and moral philosopher Adam Smith. First published in ...
'
*
James Denham-Steuart
Sir James Steuart, 3rd Baronet of Goodtrees and 7th Baronet of Coltness (; 21 October 1712 – 26 November 1780), also known as Sir James Steuart Denham and Sir James Denham Steuart, was a prominent Scottish Jacobite and author of "probably ...
(1767) ''An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Economy''
*
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
,
Das Kapital
''Das Kapital'', also known as ''Capital: A Critique of Political Economy'' or sometimes simply ''Capital'' (german: Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Ökonomie, link=no, ; 1867–1883), is a foundational theoretical text in materialist phi ...
, Vol. 1, chapter 2
Economic Manuscripts: Capital Vol. I - Chapter Twenty-Six*
James Glassman (2006)
Primitive accumulation, accumulation by dispossession, accumulation by ‘extra-economic’ means' –
Progress in Human Geography, Vol. 30, No. 5, 608–625 (2006)
* Masimo de Angelis pape
Marx on Primitive Accumulation: a Reinterpretation.* Paul Zarembka pape
* Bill Warren, ''Imperialism, pioneer of capitalism''.
*
Ernest Mandel
Ernest Ezra Mandel (; also known by various pseudonyms such as Ernest Germain, Pierre Gousset, Henri Vallin, Walter (5 April 1923 – 20 July 1995), was a Belgian Marxian economist, Trotskyist activist and theorist, and Holocaust survivor. He f ...
, ''Late Capitalism''.
* Ernest Mandel, ''Primitive accumulation and the industrialisation of the third world''.
* R. J. Holton, ''The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism''
*
Andre Gunder Frank
Andre Gunder Frank (February 24, 1929 – April 25, 2005) was a German-American sociologist and economic historian who promoted dependency theory after 1970 and world-systems theory after 1984. He employed some Marxian concepts on politi ...
, World accumulation, 1492–1789. New York 1978
* Guardian article, "The New Liberal Imperialis
Robert Cooper: the new liberal imperialism*
Raymond Aron
Raymond Claude Ferdinand Aron (; 14 March 1905 – 17 October 1983) was a French philosopher, sociologist, political scientist, historian and journalist, one of France's most prominent thinkers of the 20th century.
Aron is best known for his 19 ...
, "What Empires cost and what profits they bring" (1962), reprinted in Raymond Aron, ''The Dawn of Universal History''. New York: Basic Books, 2002, pp. 407–418.
* Ankie Hoogvelt, ''Globalisation and the Postcolonial World: The New Political Economy of Development''.
* Ankie Hoogvelt interview
Interview with Ankie Hoogvelt*
Jeffrey Sachs
Jeffrey David Sachs () (born 5 November 1954) is an American economist, academic, public policy analyst, and former director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University, where he holds the title of University Professor. He is known for his work ...
, ''The end of poverty; how we can make it happen in our lifetime'' (with a foreword by Bono). Penguin Books, 2005.
*
David Harvey
David W. Harvey (born 31 October 1935) is a British-born Marxist economic geographer, podcaster and Distinguished Professor of anthropology and geography at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). He received his P ...
Reading Marx's CapitalReading Marx’s Capital – Class 12, Chapters 26–33, The Secret of Primitive Accumulation(video lecture)
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Primitive Accumulation of Capital
Classical economics
Marxian economics
Imperialism studies
Rivera Vicencio, E. (2018) ‘Conformation of the primitive accumulation and capitalist spirit. Theory of corporate governmentality’, Int. J.Critical Accounting, Vol. 10, No. 5, pp.394–425. https://www.inderscienceonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1504/IJCA.2018.096783